Visitors walk through Muir Woods National Monument in 2025. Roads could be constructed across millions of acres of wild forest currently protected from development if the Trump administration’s rule change takes effect.

In 1905, two years after Republican President Teddy Roosevelt camped in Yosemite with Sierra Club co-founder John Muir, he made a speech at the Grand Canyon and warned Americans not to “treat any part of our country as something to be skinned for two or three years for the use of the present generation, whether it is the forest, the water, the scenery.” Instead, Roosevelt urged, “Handle it so that your children’s children will get the benefit of it.”

Those words seem especially relevant now, following the news that the Trump administration is proposing to roll back what’s known as “roadless rule” protections against logging, road-building and other industry in nearly 45 million acres of pristine U.S. national forest land across the country. 

We might want to rename it the Road Building Rule since, according to the new proposal, the Forest Service anticipates that permanent roads could be constructed across 18.2 million acres and temporary roads across 11.3 million acres of wild forest currently protected from development. Roads and road construction damage wildlife habitat, hinder wildlife movement and can cause water pollution. And, contrary to the stated rationale for rescinding the roadless rule,........

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